Compared to ANGEL, the Canvas Calendar has so much more utility. Highlights of some of the features in the Canvas Calendar include:
- A global view across all of your courses. Simply toggle on or off the courses you want to see
- Integration of assignment due dates. Whenever you add a due date to any assignment in your course, it is automatically added to the calendar
- Drag and drop editing
- The option to adjust calendar dates when importing into a new semester. Remember how in ANGEL, you had to manually move the calendar entries? This is no longer needed -- you can select the start date of the existing section and the start date of the new section, and everything gets moved for you!
With all of these new features, it might be pretty overwhelming to set up your course calendar. I've received a few questions regarding how to add items the calendar, so I made the following recording: Adding Events to Your Course Calendar.
The focus is on adding "events." I want to make this distinction because Canvas categorizes calendar items as either events or assignments. Events are primarily used as reminders for students -- for example, "Start Lesson 1" or "Quiz 1 Opens." Assignments, on the other hand, are centered on deliverable items with due dates. These typically are automatically added to your calendar if you have a due date set up in your assignment settings.
For more information about calendars, visit the Canvas Instructor Calendar Guide.